


The Sum of Seasons

by Nimori



Category: Fortress Series - Cherryh
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-08
Updated: 2010-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-08 18:59:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimori/pseuds/Nimori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unlikely friends Tristen and Efanor find companionship in their duty to the king.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sum of Seasons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qwerty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/gifts).



> Thank you Leni_jess for the beta. Written for Yuletide 2008 NYR challenge, for qwerty.

_The road through Marna Wood ran alongside the river for a time, both of them muddy and rough with winter melt. Oaks crowded the road, mistletoe-choked and dripping from deposits of late snow; now and then a lode slid from its perch with a muffled thud and a risen wave of sparrows. Here the ragged edge of a crumbled wall parted branches, and here a jut of mossy stone bucked the Lenúalim's waters, remnants of the towers and docks of long-wasted Galasien. Everywhere water ran, dripped, trickled. The wood echoed with it._

Came a party of Guelen soldiers on light horse, men of Ylesuin venturing into a Place far older and more terrible, tight together on the narrow road, wide-eyed, thin-mouthed and looking over their shoulders. Owl, bad-tempered bird that he was, swooped low over them and made the horses shy and toss their heads, and a murmur of alarm swept through the men in his wake.

**\-- It's only an owl,** said one of them, though he'd ducked along with his guard.

**\-- They say the birds is his spies,** said another.

**\-- Well then, he'll know we're coming and he'll have hot brandy waiting for us, won't he?** came the reply, tart with forced cheer. **\-- Gods seeing us safely to His Grace.**

**\--Ain't natural, ridin' into a cursed place like this.** This was said quietly, but heard anyway and answered sharply.

**\-- Any haunts in these woods answer to the Lord Warden**. If the man meant to hearten his guards with those words he failed. And persisted.**\-- His Grace is friend to Ylesuin, and all good folk.**

**\-- Who**, said Owl, in stern mockery. No few of the men blessed themselves.

The mounts bunched even closer together after that, picking their way over the treachery of unseated paving stones and the creeping roots reclaiming the road. For a time Owl played will-o'-the-wisp with them, always just ahead, until it looked like he might be their unwanted escort all the way to Ynefel's gates. But soon enough Owl spotted a mouse and lost all interest in the men, and knifed away soundlessly through the wood in pursuit of his supper.

****

Early spring winds rattled the horn panes and Tristen sat up in bed. Though it was still quite dark out he threw off the covers, gasping at the chill, and asked the candles to light themselves. He had a quick wash and then dressed with a bit more thought than usual, taking care that he matched and wasn't rumpled or missing any buttons.

A particularly foolish Shadow followed him down to the hall, leaping and capering with the candlelight, and he shooed it back to the recesses of the ceiling, back among the maze of drunken beams and listing balconies. Hoping he had time enough for at least a quick tidy, he reached across the gray space and found Efanor's sleeping mind, camped amidst a small company halfway between Ynefel and Henas'amef. The dream Owl had sent had happened yesterday, or would happen today, but either way guests were about to descend upon his house. He quickened his steps.

Outside the runoff had frozen overnight, but it was softening and would thaw entirely by daylight. Tristen arrived at the small cottage where Uwen lived with Cook and tapped politely on the door, and Uwen answered quickly enough to assure Tristen that he'd already been up and dressed.

"Efanor is in the wood. He'll be here by midmorning."

Uwen took it as a matter of course that Tristen would know and only scratched his freshly shaven cheek. "Might fit a squad in the east court, m'lord, 'less the haunts inside the walls bother 'em more than them tha's out."

"There's only six, not accounting for His Highness."

"Six? The man's gone soft-witted." A scowl appeared on Uwen's kind face, and since Tristen could not imagine him speaking so disrespectfully of Efanor he guessed Uwen must mean Efanor's captain. "Guelemara to Ynefel ain't a stroll through the market, not for a Marhanen prince."

"Crissand is putting up the rest," Tristen said, hoping to forestall any bad feelings between stubborn Guelen soldiers, former and current. "Not many Guelenmen will enter Marna, and anyway Efanor knows we haven't the means to house the lot."

"Woods is full of bandits and rebels and the like," Uwen grumbled, but his frown faded and Tristen knew he was happy Efanor was coming. Despite Uwen's complaints, Marna Wood these days held nothing more dangerous than a well-fed pack of wolves and one or two men of entrepreneurial spirit, hungry enough to poach a haunted wood but wise enough to hide from a well-armed party. And the Shadows there would not harm those with Tristen's leave to pass.

Cook fed them breakfast and then set to what she did best, while Uwen went down to the bridge to check that it was still sound after the last late winter storm. Tristen left the preparations in their hands and went back inside to do his part.

Ynefel was what it was, and asking the keep to tidy itself for company was akin to asking Owl to be a better behaved bird. Tristen did his best though, and persuaded some of the dust to seep back out to the courtyard where it belonged, and herded Mauryl's stray papers to a more or less tidy pile to one side of the hall; after that he had a stern talk with the stairs on the topic of not frightening his visitors by creaking and swaying under their feet. The faces in the walls he let alone. Ynefel was their place as much as it was his.

An hour or so before lunch, when the hall had filled with the scent of Cook's baking, Owl swooped low over the wall and then made a dramatic turn up to the loft with its exposed rafters, and Tristen knew Efanor was at the bridge outside the gates.

He went down to the yard, inexplicably nervous. Crissand guested as often as he could free himself from his duties and Sovrag and Cevulirn had been by twice in the last few years, but there had been no visitors from Guelemara -- from _Cefwyn_ \-- barring the odd skittish messenger, and they never stayed, never knew anything of what Tristen wanted hearing. He smoothed down his coat, the nice cobalt one that Cefwyn had sent him at Wintertide two years ago, and then Efanor was at the gates and Uwen was showing the men where to stable their mounts.

"Welcome to Ynefel, Your Highness," Tristen said, quietly containing the unexpected joy that bubbled up from nowhere.

Efanor dismounted, a smile brightening his travel-worn face. The dripping branches had dampened his hair to curls and he wore a bit of mud high on one cheek. "Lord Tristen. You're looking remarkably solid for an apparition."

It was a barb, not to him, and Tristen wasn't sure what had left Efanor so vexed with his men, but hoped he would not needle them much. Difficult enough for honest soldiers to come here to haunted Ynefel, not all of them possessed of Efanor's utter faith in divine providence. Nor so secure in the Lord Warden's friendship.

Tristen extended as much welcome to them as he could without aggravating their fears, and apologized for the rough facilities as he showed Efanor to the rain barrel where he could wash; in return he got a sour look and an offer to run him around the courtyard if he thought Marhanens so delicate. After that Tristen had to hide a smile. Efanor was far more alike to Cefwyn than any would suspect by their reputations.

The noise of men resounding within Ynefel's habitually quiet walls stirred the Shadows to life and agitated the pigeons. Tristen fussed over their welfare -- birds and men but especially the men because the birds, silly things that they were, would not be long distracted from their courting. These were not Amefin come calling, nor Olmernmen or Ivanim with their forbearance of things Sihhë, but Guelenfolk. To offer hot brandy on the advice of a dream from Owl would be foolish and only upset the guards all the more, but there was cold ale and fresh hot bread, and Cook's famous pies for the table and a pottage of mutton and barley for the men. Uwen and Efanor's captain ate with Tristen and Efanor in the hall, but the captain excused himself immediately after to rejoin his men in the courtyard, casting saucer-eyed looks at the walls as he left. The faces watched him go, most of them laughing now -- some kindly and others not -- and a stray Shadow, bold for daylight, chased his heels like a self-important dog. Uwen took his leave shortly after, eager to talk to his countrymen and fellow soldiers, perhaps, or to ease their discomfort with Marna and haunted Ynefel.

Efanor displayed little such discomfort and propped his feet out by the fire. "Cefwyn is terribly jealous," he confided once the dishes were cleared and their cups refilled and Cook had bustled away again to plot a supper fit for a prince. "After listening to him wish himself for the hundredth time to Amefel it occurred to me that there would not be quite the uproar were I to pay our Sihhë lord a visit on his behalf. My nephew's antics have taken some of the court's attention of late and given me a modest amount of freedom in return."

After that nothing would do until Tristen had news of Cefwyn's family: news of Ninévrisë and news of young Aewyn, whom Tristen had never seen except in Owl's wanderings. Welcome as the stories were, Tristen was almost more fascinated by Efanor's telling of them, the way his often grave face animated, the way his speech quickened with pride when he spoke of his nephew. Efanor told Tristen as much with his contented manner as with words.

In the midst of an account of Aewyn's first ride on the horse Efanor had given him for his birthday -- he'd escaped his guard and ridden all the way to the Guelesfort's gates before suffering ignominious recapture -- Tristen, smiling with his chin propped on his hand in a way that would have had Mauryl bellowing at him to take his elbows off the table like a civilized Man, said something that made Efanor startle and nearly drop his cup.

"Children?" Efanor repeated dumbly. "I mustn't have any. You should know that better than anyone."

"I didn't ask if you might. I asked if you wished."

Efanor looked away. "A fine waste of a wish that would be. Far better spent on more nephews to spoil." Underneath the light words lay real concern; the Elwynim would accept nothing less than an heir of their own, and by the treaty Aewyn belonged to Ylesuin. Tristen refrained from asking after Cefwyn's other son, ever an uneasy subject.

"I suppose neither of us will ever marry," he said instead. "It would be bad on Cefwyn."

"Egregiously so. Tristen. You would not--"

Tristen shook his head. Women mystified him, except for Ninévrisë, who was his friend, and for Cook, who was sensible and kind, much like Uwen. He was glad she had come to live with them, for he himself made Uwen poor company, retreating into thought for days on end as he did. He wondered at times if he in his solitude had missed some essential experience, but he decided some time ago that it did not matter; he could not miss what he had never known. It occurred to him that Efanor would of course feel differently.

"Do you..." He stopped and reformulated his thoughts. "Are you ever lonely?"

"What? No, of course not. Not very much. A prince is supposed to be a _little_ lonely." A moment passed in which Efanor looked uncomfortable and oddly irresolute. "I... There is someone." Efanor was watching him from under lowered lashes, evaluating. Tristen was used to such skittish behaviour from his pigeons and held still, waiting, At times he wondered if they -- pigeons, Efanor -- would ever fully trust that he wished them no harm.

"A young man," Efanor said at last, voice low as though this were a state secret. Again came the appraising pause and when Tristen only nodded Efanor relaxed into his chair and spoke, with snowballing enthusiasm, about a clerk attached to Cefwyn's household.

He was younger than Efanor, it became apparent, though not by much, and new to his position and very keen. Brilliant mind, bright ideals. He could engage Efanor in debate for hours. He understood the role Efanor played in keeping church and state from the outright warfare in which Cefwyn would have doubtless found himself embroiled without his brother to play foil, and he admired Efanor all the more for it.

Efanor said all this very quickly and with a flush that Tristen found charming. "I'm very pleased for you."

"You're apt to be the only one," Efanor replied, and Tristen understood he wasn't to repeat any of this to anyone. The mood turned pensive, and Tristen invited Efanor to stay in the keep if he wished.

"You must ward the windows," Tristen said, and Efanor nodded, wide-eyed, and touched the silver medallion he wore on a chain around his neck.

Efanor stayed for a week, informing Tristen on what politics failed to qualify for inclusion in Cefwyn's infrequent letters, and asking after any threats Tristen may have felt. Tristen wondered at how far they had come from that summer in Henas'amef and Efanor's scathing criticisms of any mysticism not sanctioned by the Guelen church, but he was glad, for Cefwyn's sake, that they had made peace between them. Before he left Efanor kissed Tristen's cheek and promised to convey his affections to Cefwyn and Ninévrisë.

The Guelen guards never did stop looking over their shoulders, and Tristen watched them go, selfishly saddened to realize none of his efforts to bridge their worlds would ever succeed. Ynefel was not a place for Men.

****

If asked to name his favourite time of year, Tristen would promptly reply with whatever the current season. In truth he liked the progression of it, the steady march of measurable time that he could share with Men. _It's going to be an early spring_, he could say to Uwen, or _Remember the summer before last, how dry it was?_ Uwen would reply with an aye and maybe an anecdote about the weather of his youth -- which to hear it from Uwen consisted entirely of torrential downpours and years-long droughts and snow that would bury a man's house and starve all his stock.

Had he thought longer on his answer Tristen might allow that the best times were really those few weeks when the seasons were noticeably changing, when Marna Wood took fire on the edge between summer and autumn, or budded a mantle of green, or when he woke to a clear heat with no hint of rain, chasing the spring chill from Ynefel's stones.

At the moment Tristen's favourite season was Winter, which had arrived with its companions Frost and Ice and Snow.

"Uwen! Cook!" Tristen thundered down the rickety stairs so quickly he was certain a few of the steps had moved out of the way for him. He burst into the courtyard, a familiar place made fresh and wondrous with a new skirt of white. Uwen was already about, clearing a patch of grass for the horses and goats.

"Uwen! Snow!" Tristen cried as though it didn't happen every year.

"I see it, m'lord. Are ye mad, out in this wi'out a coat?"

'I'll put one on when I get cold," Tristen said, spinning in circles. He flung his arms wide and laughed at the blinding blue sky, and that was when something thumped against his chest, a chilly explosion that seeped through his shirt to numb his skin.

Shocked, Tristen skidded to a halt. Uwen had _thrown snow_ at him.

And was now pretending otherwise, studiously breaking the ice sheeting the water trough as though Tristen would not see the snow clinging to his gloves. Swelling with mock outrage Tristen stooped to gather his own ammunition, and before he'd got the trick of packing it into balls Uwen had scored four more hits.

They pelted each other until Dysarys came up and nipped at his shoulder and Tristen decided he should take the lazy beast for a run. Uwen got the tack ready while Tristen found his coat and gloves and took the time to lace his boots properly. Cook pressed upon him a bundled cloth, inside of which he found a sausage pastry and a wedge of sharp Elwynim cheese.

The snow had softened Marna's angular branches, the bare and bony fingers that grasped at road and river and sky now fleshed in white. Dys took it upon himself to canter and Tristen let him while the road was still safe, before the freezing and thawing churned up buried paving stones to threaten a leg.

Such utterly clear air made the world afresh, with a new coat of snow to cover the old of fallen leaves and muffle the wood. Tristen felt as though he rode through swathing cloth with the texture of air, the world defined more through its silences than its sounds. Each breath brought new vigor, so fresh and cold he began to feel lightheaded. He fell into a pleasant waking dream as he rode, just he and Dys and after a bit, Owl, abroad in daylight as Owl infrequently was. And once he had Owl in front of him it stopped being an aimless ride and became a ride with a purpose, even if the purpose was just to follow Owl. But Owl never wanted following without reason.

Nose growing cold, Tristen became aware enough to inquire. "Owl, where are we going?"

Owl answered by doing nothing more than he had been, which was to keep maddeningly ahead of him, but Dys answered with a silly little sidestep that Tristen corrected at once. Owl, vexingly, kept his pace.

"Owl, are you taking me to Henas'amef? That's where the Road goes. I shouldn't like to go there as I am, and without telling Uwen. You know he'll fret and come after me.

"Owl, slow down. It's all well and good to make me chase you but you ought not risk Dys' legs on the paving stones.

"Owl!"

And again: "Owl!"

Frustrated, Tristen pulled Dys back to a trot. Dys fought the rein, wanting, as Tristen had long ago, to chase after Owl without heed of the dangers. Body as well as wishes, that was Mauryl's first lesson, and Tristen never forgot it. He was surprised to find they had reached the second bridge, the one at which Marna ended and the lands of men began. It was a full day's hard ride from Ynefel; the sun, what he could see of it through the trees, said that perhaps an hour had passed.

Dys, perhaps picking up Tristen's sudden bemusement, slowed as they approached the bridge and then stopped of his own accord, fast there at the height of the arch as though prepared to defend against an army. Tristen heard horses long before he saw their flashing legs and steaming breath. Dys flattened his ears and swished his tail and his hooves drew hollow thunder from the bridge as he sidestepped.

"Yes," Tristen soothed. "You're very frightening."

Dys snorted and tossed his head.

The red and gold dragon standard of the Marhanens veering around the bend was not unexpected, but he could tell from the odd jerkiness to the pace that his presence on the bridge had startled them badly. He raised a hand in greeting, and the standards firmed, perhaps ashamed at their poor showing before the Lord Warden of Ynefel.

They clattered up, muddy and wet to a man, Efanor at the fore and neither grim nor agreeable. Tristen wondered what had happened, and then remembered etiquette and bade the prince welcome to Marna. He kept his manner warm but polite lest he aggravate whatever tensions he had stumbled into.

"You may go back to Henas'amef and wait with the others," Efanor said to his captain, civilly enough but clearly at odds with the men. "I'll send to His Grace the duke when I'm ready to return."

The captain did not look happy, but Efanor was as much a Marhanen as his brother and arguing with him was twice as useless, for he had no Idrys to harangue occasional good sense into him. The captain made his respects to Tristen without ever looking at him, and turned his horse about, and the others followed suit.

"Is aught amiss?" Tristen asked when they were alone, anxious that he had given offense as he so often did without meaning.

"Nothing that some days cowering in Henas'amef will not cure," Efanor said, short but not cruel. "Old women, the lot of them."

"Uwen would call it unwise to send away your escort."

"The woods are safe enough, with you here. Besides which you haven't the room for them, nor I the patience for their superstition."

"It's not all superstition," Tristen said quietly; he knew better than any living what slept in his house.

"Well I know it," Efanor muttered, and touched the Quinaltine medallion he wore on a chain, and huffed out a breath. He relented then and smiled, and reached out a hand across the distance between their horses, and Tristen clasped it warmly.

Owl, being Owl, had vanished, and it took them just as long to reach Ynefel as it ought, so that it was long past midnight and Uwen had already come out on bay Gia to meet them before they saw the walls. Cook had hot drinks and warm towels ready and more importantly a bath by the fire in the scullery, and more towels. Tristen sat in the scullery and ate the supper he had missed and talked to Efanor while Efanor bathed, and then they traded places. And then Cook produced a tart for Efanor which she'd said had been meant for Tristen before he'd run off and given them a fright. And Efanor laughed and said they should split it, and Tristen ate his half in the bath.

The good feeling lasted into the next day. Efanor slept late and was quieter when he woke, and carried with him his little book with the pretty empty words about the gods, by which Tristen knew he wanted a measure of privacy.

At supper they all ate together in the hall, as Efanor was less inclined to formality without his men, and he did seem to cheer as the conversation lingered over Henas'amef and Cefwyn's first year as king, and times remembered fondly -- for one another's company if not for the peace and security of latter days.

_How well it has turned out, better than any of us rightly expected, and yet how happy are we?_ Tristen thought after Uwen and Cook had taken their leave. They were all of them content, but that was as well as they could manage until circumstance brought them together again or time wore down the ache of separation. There was no place for Tristen in Guelemara in peacetime, and no way for Cefwyn to visit without casting Ylesuin into strife again.

Efanor joined him in his brooding. The stories of Aewyn's havoc were shorter this year and told with less ardor and more distraction and led not to more intimate conversation but to a dry recital of the goings on in Ylesuin and Elwynor. Tristen listened and asked questions and quietly noted the tightness around Efanor's eyes and the strained set of his jaw.

Eventually Tristen ventured to ask after Elfwyn, who was called Otter on account of the unlucky name, and learned nothing more than he already knew from Crissand. Efanor had never met his other nephew, though Cefwyn, and lately Aewyn, stopped at Gran Sedlyn's cottage once a year on Tristen's advice. Efanor cautiously affirmed the enterprise a success.

"By all accounts they get on as well as Cefwyn and I as children," he said, "which is to say they drive their minders to distraction."

"And your young clerk?" Tristen asked, thinking Efanor sounded wistful. "Has that gone well?"

Efanor laughed and the sound was wry and it hurt Tristen's heart to hear it. "My young clerk. He supposed we would have a pure love affair of the mind, free from the wickedness of the flesh, while I rather thought to repent my chaste and virtuous youth with some honest sin. Cefwyn is always telling me I need more vice in my life." Something of Tristen's skepticism surely showed in his expression, for it won another laugh from Efanor, a warmer sound this time. "Though I admit my brother is hardly the man from whom to seek counsel on morality."

Tristen smiled at him, and Efanor's own smile faded and he quickly looked away.

"Gods, I was a fool. I see it now. All the nights I spent grappling with these carnal desires, muddling a clear choice -- a _very_ clear choice -- with equivocation and justification, and in the end I found that I'd made up my mind from the start to sin. When my friend proved made of sterner morals I felt not relief at the reprieve from my own weakness, Tristen, but _disappointment_."

Tristen frowned. Efanor's bitterness left him uneasy for many reasons. "I don't think it wrong of you, sir, to desire companionship."

"Would that companionship were the sum of it. The gods take no displeasure in that."

And there Tristen's qualifications to converse on the subject ended; the Quinaltine priests thought his very existence a sin, so that he felt lacking of any authority in matters of their morality. Still, he could not stay silent while Efanor brooded. "I think," said Tristen slowly, always careful with Efanor not to offend his sensibilities, "that a vice which harms no one is no vice at all."

Efanor slumped. "Sophist."

"Lament my reasoning as you will. Cefwyn may not be a pillar of morality, but he's a good king and a good man and perhaps he may speak about the necessity of occasional vice, so as it harms none."

"Tristen, cease." Efanor's voice had taken a pained, constricted tone. "My own temptations are enough to battle without you fortifying them."

"You would not have spoken if you didn't seek my opinion," Tristen said, baffled. Efanor knew he and the Quinaltine scarcely agreed on anything. "If you're waiting for me to condemn you for some perversion, you won't hear it. I think you a fine man, with admirable ethics."

"Tristen."

"And the church certainly has no call to reproach your behaviour after its own, and indeed I think your example the finer standard. I could wish Cefwyn no better brother."

"Tristen, please."

"Call me a fool as you will -- I know I am. But I should like to see you happy, and I cannot imagine any of desire of yours to be wicked."

"_Tristen_."

"Your Highness?" Alarmed at Efanor's pallor Tristen caught his hand, warm and dry in his own, unprepared to have Efanor seize him by the shoulders and shake him.

"Cease, you feckless-- How did my brother ever manage-- _Gods_," he said, and kissed Tristen harshly, and oh.

_Oh._

Everything tumbled to a halt at one thrust of tongue: the wind ceased rattling the doors and windows, the fire stilled and the Shadows stayed their mad capering among the beams overhead. No kiss for friendship, this, nor a kiss as Lady Orien had once taken from him in intrigue. There was no intrigue to Efanor at all, just soft-skinned lips and the gentle rasp of stubble. His mouth was hot and damp and sparked a crackling thrill from Tristen's lips to his toes like summer thunder and the threat of lightning in the air. The hair on the back of his neck rose.

And then Efanor was away, back turned and hand to mouth.

"Please. Forgive me, Your Grace," he said through his fingers, and Tristen could not think of a word to say, right or wrong, in reply.

***

It was a cold and formal breakfast the next morning and Tristen thought then that letting Efanor leave the table without speaking had not been the right thing; Efanor could harden his heart to stone in far less time than a night.

Nevertheless Tristen ventured to test the silence and Efanor's temper. "Did you sleep well, sir?"

"Very well, Your Grace," Efanor said, a shameless lie to go by the heavy darkened skin under his eyes, and then he lapsed to silence again.

And went on being silent until Tristen had to say, meekly, "I do not blame you if you are cross with me. I must beg your pardon." Tristen doubted they agreed on the cause for regretting yesterday's imprudence, yet for all that Efanor's dismay confused Tristen, he felt it sharply and for that at least he was sorry. "I should not have pressed you so. Forgive me."

"The fault is mine, not yours."

"I am unconvinced there is fault at all," Tristen murmured, but Efanor paid him no heed.

"You cannot be expected to understand these things, nor know to defend yourself from them," he said brusquely, cutting into the plain breakfast of sausage and biscuit. The words sounded as if he had thought the entire night upon them, and perhaps practiced their recitation, he said them so quickly and tonelessly. "I consider myself a moral man, and it is unpardonable that I should lead astray one such as yourself, who has neither years in the world nor upbringing in the faith to guide him. As well I should corrupt a child to drink or dice as lure Your Grace down this path of sin."

At this Tristen set his spoon down and regarded his guest with a steadily rising brow and then, when Efanor showed no sign of giving up his testament to the glory of Tristen's innocence, got up and went around the table. There he kissed Efanor on the mouth, in no way as well as Efanor had kissed him but certainly better than Tristen had ever kissed Cefwyn or Crissand.

"Here," he said to Efanor's astonished face. "My ravaged honour has been avenged. Now might we please go riding while the weather allows?"

Efanor closed his mouth and, by the way he startled, plainly bit his tongue in the process. Tristen went back to his own cooling breakfast, and the silence returned, shaken and turbulent now. It was no longer bitter, but matters sat far from easy between them.

In the yard they both rallied to see that Uwen had saddled three horses: unkempt Petelly and Efanor's bay and Uwen's own treasured Liss. The chaperone made for a more pleasant outing than Tristen feared, but he also found that Uwen's presence allowed the growing tension between he and Efanor to slip below the surface, where it festered. They each spoke overmuch with Uwen, and little to one another.

Uwen navigated the mood well enough until they returned to the keep, but when Efanor went up to wash and dress for dinner Uwen followed Tristen into the hall.

"Is aught amiss wi' His Highness, m'lord?"

"I don't know, Uwen." Tristen cast the stairs an anxious glance. He would have liked Uwen's opinion, assured to be more sensible than his own, but he recalled Efanor's skittish confession of the spring and thought that Efanor would not like his confidence broken. "A difference in judgment is all. I am afraid I did not speak well of the Quinalt's opinions."

"Never were a matter brung good folk to blows so quick as gods an' what they want of a man," Uwen said, sagely, and Tristen coveted his advice on the other affair all the more.

At suppertime they ate all four together again, in utter silence as Efanor chose not to speak, and neither Uwen nor Cook could rightly begin a conversation with the prince at Tristen's table, and Tristen himself did not know what to say. Uwen and Cook withdrew as soon as courtesy allowed, leaving them to one another's awkward company, for which Tristen was both grateful and piqued.

He did not like to leave matters thus another night, afraid it might render their friendship hopeless; if he could not have Uwen's advice he would beg Efanor's directly, and so Tristen sat across from him, which was a near as Efanor seemed to want him.

"Sir, I do not know how to repair this."

"Cease." Efanor did not look up from his cup. "That's my only counsel."

"Yet when I am silent you are as unhappy as I. How else might I appease you?"

"What I should like," Efanor said, "is to protect you from your own naïveté. In which, might I add, I suspect you enjoy wallowing."

"It could hardly be called naïveté were it so calculated as that," Tristen said, finding a smile. "For my part I should like to protect you from your preoccupation with a disgrace which _I_ suspect you enjoy exaggerating." Efanor drew himself up at that, and Tristen knew he had given offense, perhaps irreparably so, but forged ahead. "Your Highness... Efanor... I should like it very much if you kissed me again, but if you would not then let us make peace, sir, for Cefwyn." He offered his hand and Efanor fairly leapt to his feet to avoid it.

"To blazes with you," he said, bright spots flourishing high on his cheeks. "Do you not comprehend? This is an offense to the gods, plain and simple."

"If so then it's an offense you found forgivable in your young clerk," Tristen retorted. Unsaid and hanging after: _Why not in me?_ He controlled his temper with some effort and said with what calm he could manage, "Am I so very unacceptable?"

"_Yes!_ With any other I could--" Efanor bit his lip savagely and broke away and Tristen, feeling the matter urgent, pursued him

_into the gray space, where Efanor's presence was dim with the thinnest thread of wizardry in his blood, but still his heart less hidden, more fragile. They stood facing each other across a divide, greater than the one which existed between them in Ynefel's hall, and that dismayed him. Efanor gazed at him, miserable and no longer hiding it, his fears not so unreasonable in the aether, where barriers of language and body thinned. Here, no further could Efanor escape, and he did not try._

**\-- With any other, Tristen, I could stop_._**

The words were anguished, frightened, and he understood then that the rejection was due to Efanor's greater estimation of him, not lower, and his vehemence owed to fear. Tristen might content himself with solitude, as he knew no better; Efanor burned with passions he could not express, the futility of his inclinations a harsh enough burden to bear without Tristen adding the weight of his clumsy desires, and he saw with some shame that Efanor turned his heart from Tristen by the same will with which he turned his eye from the throne, and for the same end.

Peace for his brother's kingdom.

**\-- I did not mean to cause you torment, only I had thought we might understand one another, that there might be some comfort for you and I together alone. I had not considered that that solace might become its own wound. I withdraw, sir, as you advise.**

**\-- Only now he sees reason**, Efanor said, and jerked away from the gray space

and back to the hall, where he looked at Tristen long before stepping up to meet him, and cupping his face with both hands: gentle though his scowl remained fierce. "You are a moonstruck fool."

"I know it," Tristen said, miserable.

"I can make you no promises, nor you me."

"I know that as well."

"Then, Your Grace, Lord Tristen of Ynefel and Althalen, if you should still like a kiss I will oblige you."

"I ought not, but I do," Tristen said, "and please don't think ill of me for it. You are stronger than I in this matter."

"By no means," Efanor said with wry smile, and kissed him again.

That same sensation came upon him, shivery and all the sweeter now knowing the depths of Efanor's admiration, but with underlying bitterness for their quarrel, the cause of which they had only forestalled. Tristen did not want to think on it any longer, and let the searing force of Efanor's mouth overwhelm him; a long stroke of tongue, a graze of teeth. His breath came short and harsh. Lady Orien's advances were incomparable. Efanor's _burned_.

"Tristen," Efanor said when they parted. He sounded bewildered and apologetic but neither concealed the deep hunger with which he spoke Tristen's name.

"Efanor," Tristen replied gravely and took his hand, both trembling.

The stairs creaked and swayed and some of the faces in the stone scowled at them as they climbed to Tristen's bed; others leered, and Tristen did not seek Mauryl's face among them. The room was more welcoming, snug and warm, evening gone over to candles that lit themselves upon entry. The bed took on more significance than it ever had, with the prospect of a more interesting use than sleep, and Tristen could hardly look at it, or at anything past Efanor's face. He feared that if he looked away the moment would hurtle past them, and he suddenly found he wanted this very much.

_I want this,_ he thought. _I wish this. I wish it._

Three times thought, neither chance nor divisible. Efanor's hands shook as he unbuttoned Tristen's shirt and pushed it from his shoulders. His skin dimpled in the cold and he pulled Efanor close and gasped at the icy kiss of buckles against his bare stomach.

"We're both of us mad," Efanor said, the words hot against his throat, but Tristen's noble offer to cease died on his tongue as Efanor moulded to him, firm and warm, all breath and pulse and life. He had not been so aware of his own body since he acquired it some years ago. He pushed back against Efanor, found a certain rhythm to it, centered at their hips, and thought that _this_ was true instinct with none of the trappings of magic; he did not need this Word to unfold to know what to do. He knew. His body knew, and burned for it.

He clutched, wanting things he could only just now name, and Efanor too abandoned all hesitation, left below with their argument, and pushed back, rubbing. He grew frantic in his pace, starving, seeming to want to devour Tristen whole, a notion at which Tristen went hot all over, trembling at the potential. He should like very much to have Efanor's mouth on every part of his skin, and to put his mouth on Efanor, and to that end he undid the laces of Efanor's shirt and tugged the collar aside so that he might kiss the smooth pale neck that spoke of too much time indoors. Efanor's breath hitched.

"Tristen," he whispered.

"I should like to touch you," Tristen said, slurred against Efanor's lips and Efanor moaned, a needy and intensely human sound. "Please."

And before Efanor could answer Tristen was tearing at Efanor's belt and then plunging his hand down the front of his trousers without a by-your-leave, delving until he found what he wanted, hot and hard and straining out from its nest of curls. Efanor's would be fair like his head, Tristen thought hazily as Efanor first cried out, and then fumbled to do the same for him.

"Oh," Tristen said, stiffening head to heel at the touch, foreign and wonderful, as Efanor clasped him with a hand callused from sword and quill alike. "Oh, we should be naked, if we're going to do improper things."

"You make far more sense after I've kissed you, Your Grace," Efanor said and pulled his shirt off still mostly laced and flung it away, and Tristen hurried the rest of the way out of his but then found he could not stand to be lacking Efanor's touch for even such a short time. They pressed together again, despairing of ever getting out of their trousers. The boots had to go first, and they went with much swearing and stopping to kiss, and the trousers ended up inside-out over top of them.

It was a short tumble to the bed. Tristen found himself underneath and Efanor a sudden spitfire, hot Marhanen blood ignited, hands everywhere. Tongues met, parried, broke off to pursue other targets.

And there were so many targets.

Nipples, small and pointed in the cold, were obvious; Efanor's teeth on them sent bolts of something indefinable to his stomach and lower. Nape, unexpectedly shivery to feel breath upon. Ears -- oh the ears nearly undid him. Stomach, and Efanor liked this one, and gasped and pleaded when Tristen pressed a dozen feathery kisses there. He thought he might keep going but Efanor fairly leapt away, gasping.

"No more. I'll finish."

"I had thought that the general idea," Tristen said, pursuing. "Am I wrong?"

"There's more I thought we might do," Efanor replied, and Tristen knew at once that it was so, that Efanor wanted it more than he would say. "You may... You're the High King." It was the first time Tristen had heard Efanor acknowledge it. "It should be you."

"That's not what you want," Tristen said, guessing. The words upset Efanor and he stammered and retreated, tried to reshape his wishes until Tristen said, "Be still. I would have you content."

In a miserable tone: "You would submit?"

Ideas were pouring over him quickly now, and he liked all of them. "I think it would please me either way."

Naked, Efanor could not hide that he found _that_ pleasing indeed, and he hid his face against Tristen's shoulder and cursed at him. Tristen thought it amusing and at once felt ashamed; Men's laws were not his and Efanor, more devout than most, struggled with his desires in ways Tristen could never understand. He ought not to mock Efanor's fears.

"I would have you content," Tristen said again, softly, contritely. "We will do as you wish, until I find objection -- and I have not, thus far, with anything you have said or done." He kissed Efanor's neck, felt Efanor shudder. "Come. Lie with me," he whispered, and pulled Efanor down to him. Efanor went, a bundle of willing reluctance.

They were both shaking, when Efanor pushed into him.

It hurt, terribly so, but it came to him that he should bear with it and it would pass, and at the edges of that Unfolding lurked an impression of red hair and rough beard and a laugh like sunlight on water. He pushed it away, wanting only this, for Efanor to be Efanor and for he to be himself.

_I am Tristen. Only Tristen._

"Tristen," Efanor gasped, and it was three times sealed.

This intimacy was, he thought hazily as Efanor moved within him, very much like drawing wards, only no ward had ever made him feel as though the earth had spun away from under him. And Efanor, with his negligible wizardry, was doing this magic, giving him these strange feelings, joyful and unbearable at once. He felt they were chasing something, together.

Efanor caught it first and stiffened, arching, but then the gray light exploded over them and swept Tristen into the storm of Efanor's pleasure, winds howling. He lost all sense of definition between them in that space, and it frightened him, and frightened Efanor, but Efanor had tried to warn him this was no light matter.

Shaken, shaking, he came back to himself.

And found he had a body, which was both very sore and very pleased, and that it had become so accustomed, in those few minutes, to having Efanor inside him that he felt he was missing something. An oddly hollow feeling overcame him, and he fended it off by holding Efanor close. Efanor, perhaps suffering the same loss, was content to be held for a while, and then he shifted to the side, but only so far that his weight was not solely on Tristen.

It was unexpected, had he considered long enough to have expectations. He'd shared a bed with Uwen before, and with Cevulirn while haring about Amefel, but this naked press of skin was different: uncomfortably hot, for one matter, and they stuck together with oil and other things in odd places, and Tristen did not know how familiar Efanor wished him to be now that they were finished. He had to attend that his hands did not stray where they wished, which was everywhere.

He restricted himself to tracing Efanor's face as Efanor's heart slowed and his eyes slipped closed, suspecting that if he looked in the gray light of that other space he would see Lines between them where none had existed before; warding, binding. Efanor had become a Place to him, and he to Efanor.

What a staggering and simple power Men had in this. And Efanor had fallen asleep.

Tristen would have liked Uwen's opinion on it, only Uwen was not the sort of man who spoke casually of such intimate acts. He found himself reaching, without meaning to, for Master Emuin and his stingy but resilient guidance.

Only to find a closer presence, and Tristen gathered, from Crissand's embarrassed shock, that he had been rather louder than he realized, and that every wizard of any note from Chomaggari to the Hafsandyr knew what he'd been doing, if not with whom.

****

Efanor lay abed, tousled head made yet more golden by the light filtering through the aged horn panes, and watched as Tristen fed his pigeons. Tristen had felt no need to dress, but had risen with only a blanket to ward away the cold. It was an awkward thing and he regretted doing it, as Efanor would only look at him when his attention lay with the birds. They had not spoken.

At last he could not stretch the bread any further. He shut the window and latched and warded it, and turned to reclaim his clothing and perhaps right whatever had gone wrong between them, mysteriously, while they slept; Efanor, mistaking his direction, lifted the blankets. Tristen hesitated long enough for Efanor to lower them again and then reached and their hands collided. He suddenly felt quite silly and got back into bed.

"You're cold," Efanor said, hesitantly wrapping his arms around Tristen.

"You're warm," Tristen said, and ventured to press his cold nose to Efanor's neck. After that the tension between them shifted to something else, that involved more kisses and more of the oil that turned up on the table whenever it was in Tristen's mind that they needed it.

Efanor -- cleverly, Tristen thought when he could think again -- rolled himself under Tristen before there could be any debate over the particulars, and he discovered he liked one way as much as the other, and both of them very much, and Efanor very much as well. The Lines beginning between them, Tristen thought with a mix of worry and pleasure, strengthened with repetition. Efanor didn't comment, so Tristen thought it might be another of those things everyone knew but him.

They lazed abed until well into morning. Uwen and Cook said nothing, and only acted happy to see their differences resolved, and went around them more at ease. And therein, Tristen realized after a day or so had passed, lay another problem.

Where once the day seemed full of enforced intimacy, now that he and Efanor had arrived at an understanding Uwen and Cook were underfoot at every turn. It was all Tristen could do not to wish them away to Henas'amef for the remainder of Efanor's stay so that he could take Efanor to bed and keep him there. Uwen did not deserve such ill treatment though, and neither did Cook, so he held his tongue and kept his patience and satisfied himself at luring Efanor into any of Ynefel's host of dark corners to make free with his person. Neither Cook nor Uwen ventured up the stairs, the keep being Tristen's domain, and so neither discovered the state of the beds, one days unslept in and the other a chaos of tangled bedclothes.

It ended, as it must, before the roads became impassible, before the Guelen Wintertide began and Efanor was due to represent the throne at a score of gatherings Cefwyn could not himself attend. The escort arrived from Henas'amef shamefaced but happier for having spent the weeks away from Ynefel's haunts. Or more likely its lack of drink and dice and friendly women.

In the courtyard Efanor gave Tristen a chaste and proper kiss before the men and loudly thanked him for his hospitality. Tristen did not watch him leave, but instead retreated to the hall to read and nurse the unexpected ache in his heart.

****

It was spring again before Tristen realized he had not had any news of Master Emuin for many a month, and a gentle inquiry met with a lack of response so complete that he knew Emuin was not merely ignoring him.

He wrote a letter to Crissand, not daring to discuss such a matter through the gray space where Tarien Aswydd, bitter spider in her tower, might overhear. But Crissand knew less than he, and could only speculate.

_He was at the Teranthine abbey in Anwyfar last I knew, but the brothers have one and all gone obtuse regarding his whereabouts. I should not reckon he is dead, or they would be waving their piety about like a banner and hinting at a stipend to maintain his tomb._

Dead or a haunt or hermited away in a sulk, Emuin's absence lent the spring a melancholy air, and Tristen went about less than usual, preferring the solitude of the keep. He did not trouble Cook for his meals but looked after himself, at least when he remembered to do so, and wrote letters to dearly missed friends, and read from what books survived the mice, and dwelled in equal measures over Cefwyn and Efanor, away in the midlands.

****

_ From above Guelemara was a sea of narrow pointed rooftops and sooty chimneys, ever smoking, even in the summer heat. Washing hung between houses, strung like spider webs laden with prey. Here the march of traffic carved a channel in the aether; here a dizzying array of masons' wards tangled where part of the city had burnt down and been rebuilt along different Lines, weaker than their neighbours, apt to burn again._

The Quinalt lorded over its square, secure in its dark nest of Lines, its Shadows tamed if uneasy about it. Far more alarming, discord roiled over the citadel down the way, a visible cloud in the gray space, sparking inaudible thunder in the clear sky. Ninévrisë was away to her own kingdom for the summer. Cefwyn had, after an upset with his barons that left lingering streaks of anger in the aether, taken his son on a hastily planned hunting trip and abandoned care of the realm to his brother.

Here Efanor paced by the window, dressed more finely than his wont, the diamond panes carving up the late afternoon sun to fall in neat slices across his unattended correspondence. Here the uneasy threads had assembled, more Shadows in this one room than Tristen had seen his whole time in Guelemara, except in the ill-built Quinaltine church, and into that nest he swept on ghost-silent wings.

Owl settled atop the cornice, more spectre than bird, and twisted his head 'round backwards to observe Efanor.

**\-- Two who?** asked Owl, grumpily, and Efanor's pacing halted at once.

**\-- Tristen?** he whispered, eyes suddenly wide. The Shadows drew back to the corners of the room but did not retreat altogether. Efanor looked about him, but did not seem to see Owl. Frowning he sank into the desk chair and rubbed at his eyes, and the Shadows came creeping back, and ignored Owl when he flapped his wings.

****

It was two days before Tristen admitted that the storm had been building over years and would not break on its own, not in any way good for his friends. The gray space offered no guidance, only directionless unease, and of Master Emuin there remained no trace. He hesitated to interfere in the world of Men -- doubly so because his own heart in this case urged him to -- but he could not allow such cracks to open so near to Cefwyn. Wizardry would always find that chink in the wards, that unhappy soul so easy to set in motion. So he put aside his fears of unintentionally causing harm with his presence and stepped

_around the illusion that Efanor was in one Place and he in another and that many other Places stood between them_

across the miles to Efanor's chambers. Efanor was at the window seat, the little book of devotions open and ignored in his lap, and it took him an endless moment, while Tristen drank in the sight of his face, to realize he was no longer alone. When he did he gasped and turned ashen and his fingers darted to the amulet at his throat. Then he laughed shakily and stood to greet Tristen.

He'd thought that they might speak -- of inconsequential things if Efanor wished -- but Efanor only whispered for him to hurry and tumbled him to the bed, devotions abandoned, fingers at Tristen's buttons. A fierce ache swept through him at the touch, and he forgot any noble intentions under the heat of Efanor's kisses, all the long days without this driving them both to incaution. Efanor did not quibble over their positions but took him without argument, thrusting hard and fast, hands slipping on the backs of Tristen's thighs, breath ragged against Tristen's neck, loud over the rustle of linens, the creak of the bed.

There was no other sound but the staff tidying in the next room and, farther away, some of Efanor's guards at dice.

Tristen shut his eyes, felt that he could fly and maybe had, a little. The slowing beat of his heart drummed him down to earth, breath returning as he stroked Efanor's hair and held him while he talked himself into contentment.

Before he left Tristen evicted all the Shadows which did not belong and repaired the wards on Efanor's window. Efanor watch from the bed, naked, sated, solemn.

****

Not a month later Cook's sister took ill and Tristen's little kingdom unexpectedly flourished to four. It was a bad number, twice divisible, but he liked Cook's nephew well enough and Uwen seemed happy for the extra hands. Cadun was old enough not to go risking his neck on the parapets as Tristen once had, but young enough to fill the courtyard with noise sufficient to aggravate Owl, and Owl went about in an ever worse temper for weeks.

Along with Cadun Crissand had sent an account of Cefwyn's sons, who in their few hours a year in one another's company had managed to form a partnership of mischief that had sent half the town into an uproar and this year resulted in the king himself wading into a creek to retrieve the pair of them.

_It was amusing after the fact, of course,_ Crissand wrote, _and I see that your advice regarding them was sound. They will be fast friends if only we wretched adults would leave them be. The Guelen king was pressed not to laugh and render their scolding useless. His Majesty sends his affections, and bids Uwen Lewen's-son well._

It was a lure of Crissand's, well-played and tempting, but if Cefwyn could come so far as Henas'amef and no further then Tristen would not contest his prudence by coming out to meet him. Cefwyn went away, good Guelen king, unspoiled by the taint of dead Sihhë witchlords, and Crissand's next letter was more moderate.

Some weeks later Efanor arrived with a scant handful of men, horses lathered, to an escort of blowing leaves. Tristen asked no questions but welcomed them silently into the keep, wondering all the while if Crissand had said something to Cefwyn.

Efanor stayed for four days, every minute of which he spent either in Tristen's bed or alone down by the moss-choked dock, throwing stones in the river, making ripples. On the fifth day he collected his men from where they were, out of boredom, helping Uwen and Cadun repair the loft's roof. He left having hardly spoken ten words the whole time.

Tristen watched the road from Ynefel's parapets long after the autumn-shabby trees of Marna Wood closed greedy fingers over Efanor's head, and only by means of great effort kept himself from following with other than his eyes. He could not afford to throw stones as Efanor did. His ripples were devastating.

His choice to remove himself from Mens' affairs hurt more than ever. Cefwyn's throne, his wife and child, his happiness cost them each in different ways, but they both loved Cefwyn more than anything else in the world and Tristen knew, as surely as he knew spring would come, that Efanor would never begrudge his brother any of it.

That did not mean Efanor would always bear his lot with grace.

_**\-- Be well**_ Tristen wished across the gray space, selfishly, recklessly, and Efanor's reply was wordless and fierce.

****

Winter came with its usual savagery, and one morning the winds swept the Duke of Amefel and his escort to Tristen's doorstep. Crissand was in high good spirits for he'd escaped his lady wife's holiday preparations in order to tour Amefel's holdings, and he'd managed to time his visits so as to avoid all but a few of the court festivities.

"We miss you at the Zeide," Crissand declared, face flushed with wine. He'd presented Tristen with a new riding cloak and a sloppy declaration of his affections, his esteem, and his affections once again. "Visit us in the spring. Stay the season. Hell," Crissand said, "stay the year."

"Hush," Tristen murmured, head pillowed on his arm. He felt sleepy, and content and melancholy both at once, and he could not foist all of it on the wine or the merry racket Crissand's men were making in the kitchen with Uwen and Cook and Cadun.

"Cefwyn will be along with Aewyn at mid-summer." Crissand's mouth had gone sly, and Tristen shut his eyes. The persistence, he thought, was driven mainly by the irrational but fierce jealousy Crissand felt towards Cefwyn and, lately, Efanor. Some misguided urge to make amends for wanting sole dominion over Tristen's heart, as if by acting generously he could make himself feel it. "My lord, you know he wishes to see you. An accident of timing--"

"--would stir the hornets again, and he'd not thank me for it."

"He wouldn't care."

"More the reason we should. Come here." Tristen tugged Crissand forward and kissed his brow, and sent him up to the bed Efanor never used. After a while Tristen sought his own, but he lay awake long, watching the Shadows edge around the watch-candle's light.

He woke sore-headed, but it was nothing compared to Crissand, who moaned and whimpered until Cook made him one of her simples, which he choked on and then went to duck his head in the rain barrel outside the scullery.

"I should know better than to drink with you," Crissand said, cracking an eye as Tristen sat down beside him. "Worse than that pirate Sovrag. How do you do it?"

"Magic." Tristen smiled, deciding not to point out his one glass for Crissand's every three. "Eat something. It will settle your stomach."

Later in the day he bid Crissand and his men farewell, and thanked him for the cloak. Thoughtful, Tristen climbed to Mauryl's old study, where the last crumbling remains of Galasien mouldered, nesting place for generations of Ynefel's mice. Among them were some few tomes from a later age, if not by much; by rights they should have been in nearly as bad a condition, but in truth were in better shape than those in the Zeide's library.

Unlike their Galasieni companions, these books knew their owner still lived.

Some of them had glamours upon them, and these Tristen set aside, their contents too dangerous, or useless to a man who possessed only faintest trace of magic and no inclination to use it. Of those that remained he chose a simple volume of history, thin but full of detail that had faded from Men's chronicles, and then he sat by the fire in the hall and made translation notes, enough to get Efanor started without calling on a Bryalt priest. A tome of history was respectable enough for a man such as Efanor to possess, no matter the origin. And Efanor would enjoy it, and would speak to Cefwyn about it as he translated, and it would draw the brothers closer, bind them with the Lines Tristen was learning existed between Men.

He tucked the note inside the pages and asked the book to be in Efanor's chambers in the Guelesfort, and that no servant should lay hands on it before Efanor. Then he went down to the little house where he was invited to have a cup of Wintertide cheer with Uwen.

And with the holidays came a rare letter from Cefwyn.

> _My dearest friend,_
> 
> I hope this finds you and yours in good health, etc., etc. The realm is well; the capital less so as there has been once again a debate over how much of her own holiday custom is to be allowed my lady wife. Ninévrisë is taking the fuss with a kinder temper than I am inclined, so there has been no open warfare as of yet, but I expect daily that I shall have to declare the Teranthines supreme so as to unite Quinalt and Bryalt against me and give Ninévrisë peace for the season.
> 
> Aewyn grows apace, that is to say he can now open the stable gates himself and his guards have thrice now attempted to resign their posts. He has asked this year to go to Amefel in lieu of gifts. I wonder what devilry you have stirred, acquainting my sons with one another. Thus far Otter has yet to prove his natural good sense will hold against his brother's lack thereof; last year he offered nary a protest when Aewyn took it in his head they should whitewash the neighbour's goat (as it was dirty, he says, and I cannot believe him seeing as it was a brown goat before they set upon it). Whereas from my own childhood I clearly recall that were I to suggest adventures of extraordinary folly Efanor would knock me down and sit on me.
> 
> He is in a foul temper, Efanor. Sulriggan's youngest brat has been needling him again; were she a man I believe he would have called her out already and I am beginning to think he may do so anyway. I am sending him to you in the spring, as he always returns from Ynefel in better spirits.
> 
> I wish with all my heart that Ninévrisë and I could join him. The ensuing uproar would bring my delinquent soul the greatest of joys; I never once imagined I would be such a well-behaved king but I find a stable realm and a lack of treachery among my barons to be a pleasant thing. That the Quinalt will always find something to squawk about cannot be helped.
> 
> Cefwyn

And below the seal there was a postscript.

> _In haste: have you heard aught from Master Emuin? My letters to him go unanswered, and I cannot establish from the brothers at Anwyfar whether this is due to some illness, or terror at my offer to engage him as Aewyn's tutor._

****

"Were you anyone else I think I would steal you away," Tristen said one evening, stroking Efanor's hair as he lay with his head on Tristen's chest. This possessiveness was not new, but the feeling had crept in through the cracks with all the insidiousness of Hasufin's tricks and he didn't like the way it took over his thoughts, made its own irrationality seem reasonable.

"Were I anyone else I would go, gladly." This was said to their toes, that rested, touching, on the coverlet. They were quite naked, a state with which Tristen had regained his long-ago ease and coaxed Efanor into the same. "Being a superfluous prince of Ylesuin becomes more of a bother every year."

"Shall I wish us a farm in Ivanor?" Tristen asked. The warmth and comfort of Efanor's skin to his made him silly. "I might be a dairy wife if you could endure my cooking."

"Mmm, but I'd pauper us with all I know of cows. Wish us instead a boat in Casmyndan. Fish I may succeed at. And I've always wanted to visit the sea."

"It's big," Tristen said, for it came to him that it was so. "Deeper and wider than you can imagine. But you'll see it." He was suddenly sure of it, and that he would be there too, and that there would be fine sand and gulls bolder than his pigeons. And ships. Many of them, with gaily coloured sails.

"We could sail from Casmyndan to lands over the sea," Efanor said, his tone even lighter, but now with false whimsy. "I've heard there are great beasts in Balav, bigger than four oxen, that carry whole houses around on their backs."

Tristen closed his eyes, smelling cardamon and jasmine, hearing the trumpeting of the beasts of which Efanor spoke, hearing the rolling lilt of a tongue that might Unfold to him if he let it, and knowing it for a Place they would be, but not in this Time. Knowing too that time was one piece and that he might ignore all the moments between Now and Then and make it happen. Knowing that he mustn't.

"Someday we might," he said, making his voice light too, when he wanted, quite badly, to say _Let's_, and snatch Efanor away. "When Ylesuin can spare her superfluous princes."

"Whenever that may be," Efanor muttered.

It set a low mood over their bed, reminder that Efanor could not dally much longer. Already the prince's twice-yearly consultations with the Lord Warden of haunted Ynefel gave Guelenfolk pause. And that without even accounting that Tristen had ventured into the world many more times than sensible, just to steal a few moments here and there. Chancy and secret meetings, by nature fast and quiet and never, ever enough.

_When shall I see you next_, he wanted to ask, but they had agreed on no promises. Instead he rolled Efanor over and pushed inside him, still slick and easy from the last time, and let his body make demands his mouth could not. Efanor gave in, gladly.

Much to Tristen's vexation, Crissand arrived on the heels of Efanor deciding to stay another day, and ruined their plans to stay abed. If Crissand noticed anything amiss he did not show it, and rambled on to Tristen and was pleasant to Uwen and Cook, but only polite to Efanor -- as Crissand and Efanor got on about as well as a scholarly Quinalt and a hotheaded Bryalt possibly could, and mostly, Tristen felt, for his benefit.

And for his benefit, Efanor humoured Crissand far into the night while Crissand wanted to stay drinking by the fire. Tristen had long since sent Uwen and Cook away to their own house, and Crissand's men, brave as they were, had fled the hall's roving Shadows at sundown. And still Crissand talked, bright-eyed.

At last Efanor bid them goodnight. Tristen watched him go, wondering at how he could feel so put upon to be abandoned to Crissand's company, which he normally cherished.

"Have another cup with me, my lord," Crissand said, slinging an arm about him, "and we'll toast the Guelen king's health."

As if Tristen would refuse that. But then Crissand wanted another, to the Lady Regent, and after that one to Ylesuin, and it occurred to Tristen that this behaviour was deliberate and as such he might forget his manners.

He stood, irritated. "I'm going to bed. You're welcome to stay as late as you like, but Efanor is leaving at dawn and I must be up to see him off." He tried to rein in his temper as he went upstairs, not wanting to spoil his last night with Efanor, but it burst free again when he reached his room -- _their_ room, while Efanor was at Ynefel -- and found it empty.

Guests or no, early start or no, Tristen marched along the balcony and up the stairs to Mauryl's old room where Efanor was never meant to sleep, and crawled into bed with his lover. He was sure Crissand saw from the lower balcony, and he didn't care. And in the morning, out of sheer spite Tristen kissed Efanor full on the lips in Crissand's view, and took uncharitable pleasure in flustering the pair of them.

"I deserve it," Crissand said later, after Efanor had gone. "When have you known me to be sensible about sharing you? And it's so much worse now that you're..."

"Sharing a bed," Tristen said, one of the more polite terms he'd heard among the soldiers, who were the only people he knew who spoke directly of such things.

Crissand flushed and ducked his head and the gray space churned and boiled. Jealousy again, hot and potent and dangerous in one with the wizard gift.

He didn't know what to do with Crissand, who didn't want him in that way and yet didn't want anyone else to have him either. "You," Tristen said at last, "are a... a _silly goose_." It was an expression of Cook's, and one Tristen only now understood.

"I know it," Crissand said, chastened but not enough. "I shall be horrible and miserly more quietly from now on. And I don't wish Efanor ill at all."

"Don't," Tristen said, and Crissand stepped back a pace, and Tristen realized he had said this much more darkly than he'd intended. But it sobered Crissand and made him try a little harder to be generous, and the rest of his visit passed with a more pleasant feeling between them. He could not stop himself from missing Efanor though, and Crissand seemed to know it, for he managed some genuine repentance before he left.

Tristen tried not to feel his empty house so keenly. He had his own small family in Uwen and Cook and Cadun, and Efanor would come again in the fall or early winter. And in between they would steal as many moments as Tristen dared.

When and how Uwen became aware Tristen never discovered; only it seemed one day as if he had always known, and more, that there was nothing out of the ordinary about it, regardless of what Efanor said. On the occasion they spoke of it Uwen only said, "It happens in the guard, more 'n the priests like to say. Us lads, we don't pay no mind except as there's a domestic squabble in the barracks."

Tristen smiled at the image of two staid Guelen soldiers shouting and flinging crockery at one another as did the occasional couple in the streets of Henas'amef. And then he thought that soldiers were generally armed better than a burgher's wife and it did not seem so amusing anymore.

****

News of the arrival of Elwynor's long-awaited heir came one spring by the unprecedented means of Ninévrisë, who put up such a happy clamour in that place only wizards could see that Tristen had to respond, just to keep her from drawing notice. And he spilled his tea on the letter he was writing to Efanor, she gave him such a turn.

It was only a brief touch, but had the effect of silencing her completely, for Ninévrisë had not enough presence to form conversation from that distance. Tristen did, and wished her and the child well with as little disruption to the aether as he could manage. Emuin was not the only wizard with a knack for silence, and Tristen had sensed elusive, not always friendly currents and was wary.

He took a more watchful stance, and found himself dwelling more and more on Elfwyn, safe within Gran Sedlyn's wards but growing so quickly now, and heading for his majority and a time where others' influences waned. The day was coming when Elfwyn's wishes would not be so easily contained.

He thought -- _wished_ \-- that Aewyn would be Elfwyn's choice.

And as it turned out, he was right.

****

Master Emuin had not changed a bit in the intervening years; perhaps his beard had grown a little longer.

"Will you teach them?" Tristen asked, looking down at the boys as they romped in the snow.

"Will you?" Emuin countered.

"I daren't. Yes, yes, I know what you have to say to that."

Emuin harumphed into his tea. "At least you've learned not to go crashing about through the world, skewing this and wrenching that. Gods deliver _them_ the same lesson." From the Zeide's stable court boyish laughter echoed up.

"I'm going to Guelemara with Cefwyn," Tristen said, smiling. "Uwen too."

"I've spoke too soon. What, boy, do you plan to do there?"

"Visit with Cefwyn. And Efanor."

"Oh, _him_." Emuin cast him a sly sidelong glance, but Tristen refused to blush.

"Him," he agreed. No amount of lecturing or insinuation would dampen his cheer. He was _in_ the world now, in a way he wasn't during those illicit visits to Efanor's chamber at the Guelesfort, and what ripples he would make had been made. He would have his spring with Cefwyn and Cefwyn's family.

No one quite saw when Emuin left, only one day he was there, and then Ninévrisë and Aemaryen returned from Elwynor and he was nowhere to be found. When Tristen inquired he met only silence, a gray that blended so well with the mists of the wizards' place that it was all but invisible. Tristen let it alone. Cevulirn and Sovrag had come, and old Pelumer of Lanfarnesse, and after a week on Crissand's hospitality, they were for Guelemara.

Elfwyn would travel with them, and stay so long as Tristen did before returning to the Zeide. Things would be safer, Tristen felt, with Aswydds where Aswydds belonged.

"You are welcome to Ynefel any time you wish," Tristen said as they reassembled after fording the Assurnbrook. Elfwyn had been riding near him the whole way, which perforce meant Aewyn had too. "Only, call Owl, please, to lead you through Marna. You do have a distressing talent for falling into haunts."

Elfwyn blushed hotly, and then regarded him with all of Mouse's cautious greed. "May Aewyn come too?"

As if anyone could stop Aewyn from being where Elfwyn was. "He may if your father permits."

"Oh, hell," Cefwyn said. He'd been dividing his attention as he rode between his wife and daughter, his sons, and his southern barons, and looked harried for it. "Neither of you are leaving my direct sight for at least another week."

"Then," Aewyn said slyly, "that means Papa should come to Ynefel too."

Cefwyn, Tristen noted, only grumbled and didn't deny the idea.

The Guelen court was little happy to have back, all at once, their heathen queen, their king's witch-gotten bastard son, half the lords of the south, and the living embodiment of everything Sihhë. Efanor was overjoyed.

"Your well-deserved holiday in Amefel awaits, brother," Cefwyn said; teasing, Tristen understood.

"You've brought the holiday to me." Efanor did not look away from Tristen as he said it. "But if you insist I'll be glad to accompany Lord Tristen and my nephew home, and take my month then."

"What, and leave me with the Patriarch? No thank you," Cefwyn said, and Efanor obliged with a laugh, but soon found occasion to brush close to Tristen.

"My office by the lower hall. One hour." Murmured low and heated and full of promise.

But when the time came, Efanor long slipped away, Tristen found Elfwyn -- and perforce Aewyn -- attached to his side like a burr to Gery's tail. He despaired of escaping until Uwen, ever his man, saw the difficulty and rescued him, snaring the boys' attention with a story of Lewen field. Tristen escaped the king's hospitality for another's, one he'd been craving four long months.

Efanor as well, it seemed, for he caught Tristen before the door had fully shut, and kissed him on the same breath he'd shouted to the door guards he wanted no interruption. His hands were everywhere, and tugged inefficiently at clothes that refused to cooperate. Then laces snapped under Tristen's desire to have them gone, and buckles loosened of their own accord and suddenly there was room for hands inside their clothing.

"Gods," Efanor gasped.

"Blasphemy already?" Tristen bit an ear, dangerously close to being Owl, just then. "We've only just started."

"Shush, you. Oh, I won't make it. Finish me quick and then fuck me after."

Efanor, his Efanor, never said such things unless he was desperate, and Tristen dropped to his knees, fumbling with Efanor's hose, which was usually easier than trousers but tonight defied him. He gave up and mouthed Efanor right through the hose, dizzy at the damp heat and the scent of his lover. Fingers clenched in his hair.

Then the door was opening to let in the brighter light from the corridor and Efanor was pulling away to stand in front of him.

"My orders--" was all he got out before he stiffened, and when Tristen peered around Efanor's hip he met the expressionless dark-mustached countenance of Idrys, Lord Commander of the Dragon Guard.

****

Cefwyn shouted. He paced. He waved his arms and asked them if they knew how much trouble would ensue should the Quinalt catch scent of their affair.

Efanor shouted back. He did not pace but stood with his feet planted and his jaw clenched, and demanded a small measure of Marhanen recklessness as his due for playing the dutiful son all the years Cefwyn ran wild.

Tristen sat quietly and watched. He had seen Cefwyn and Efanor quarrel before, and certainly Cook had sent Uwen to sleep in the drafty hall a time or two over the years, but he'd never before witnessed the wonders of a true family altercation, not having had a family or a childhood himself. He was dumbstruck, at once appalled and fascinated by the sheer absurdity of the accusations that flew like arrows across the desk.

Efanor wished to incite the barons to rebellion. Cefwyn was pandering to the north. Efanor wanted to sabotage the peace treaty with Elwynor. Cefwyn couldn't bear to see Efanor content. On it went until Efanor finally snapped that he would convert to the Teranthines and join a monastery and _that_ would settle the Quinalt, at which point Tristen could hold his tongue no longer.

"No monasteries," he said firmly, prepared to invoke his little-used authority as High King if necessary, and Cefwyn took one look at Tristen's face and burst into laughter. After a moment Efanor joined him, leaving Tristen puzzled and a little hurt.

"The Teranthines aren't all celibate," Cefwyn said when he had caught his breath. "The gods' grace, so you're a man under all that magic after all."

Tristen flushed and chose not to respond, and then flushed even more when he accidentally caught Efanor's eye.

"Oh, hell." Cefwyn looked between them. "Is this your condition? Are you to walk about the halls gazing raptly into each other's eyes like newly wedded fools? And which is the bride? No, don't answer."

"Both," said Tristen and Cefwyn flung up his hands.

"I don't wish to know! Gods take you both. This is treason. Or should be. You can't have thought I'd approve."

"You haven't said you don't," Tristen pointed out, "only that we would scandalize people you already hold in low esteem. And regardless of what you may think we were aware of the risk when we began."

"I'm certain you were." Cefwyn raked back his hair. "What baffles me is that you proceeded anyway."

"_Cefwyn_," Efanor snapped. "I shouldn't have to remind you of all we did to secure your marriage to Ninévrisë. Battling spectres and Elwynim usurpers and half your own bloody kingdom--"

"Enough. I yield." Cefwyn collapsed into his chair. "Gods. Of things you could ask of me. I think I'd rather abdicate."

"Please don't," Efanor said, alarmed.

"I should, and leave you regent just to punish you." Cefwyn narrowed his eyes.

"Your censure is quite punishment enough," Tristen said, and at that Cefwyn scowled.

"Do not look at me all woebegone, sir. It is sense, not censure." He glared at them a moment before his expression softened. "You're happy?"

"Yes," Tristen said, simply, and Cefwyn closed his eyes.

"Then I will do all I can for you. I only wish you had told me."

"It's been nigh on ten years," Efanor said, and rapped his knuckles on Cefwyn's head. "We hardly need assistance now."

"Then it's a promise easily filled." Cefwyn grinned. "Come on, man, let's drink before the vultures we call subjects descend on our dearest Tristen."

****

True to his word, thereafter Cefwyn found reason for Efanor to be in Amefel on legitimate crown business at least once a season, and Tristen, chastened into caution, stopped his chancy and illicit visits to the capital. He came just once more to Guelemara, and that was by horse, the year Cefwyn took to the notion of marrying Aewyn to a Chomaggari princess. Cefwyn had some half-formed romantic idea that Aewyn might find the same sort of fairytale match he had with Ninévrisë, and secure the southern border besides. Aewyn, having met the princess in question, threw a loud and public fit, behind which his brother Elfwyn pitched his support with nary a moment's pause.

Tristen arrived unannounced and unaccompanied except by Gery, and the court, already in an uproar over the notion of yet another foreign consort, nearly shouted down the heavens -- at least until Tristen made plain his support for Aewyn's position. After which they subsided to quieter complaints and let the lord of Ynefel plead their cause for them.

"He is too much his father's son," Tristen said at breakfast in the king's apartments. Efanor and Ninévrisë, who had each done a turn at playing peacemaker between Cefwyn and Aewyn, kept silent while Cefwyn grumbled into his tea. He had not invited either of his sons to the table, a foolish decision in Tristen's opinion, given their history of plotting when left unsupervised together.

"You would not fare well in a marriage to someone you disliked so strongly," Tristen tried again. "And neither would the border you seek to hold."

"But I would do it." Cefwyn sounded quite sulky, and Aemaryen, jam-faced and struck mute by Tristen's presence, regarded her father with some amazement. "If it were best for Ylesuin, I would do it."

"And do more harm than good in the end," Tristen said.

"Listen to him, brother," said Efanor.

"Plague on you. Plague on you all. Gods, Idrys, don't hover so. What is it?"

"Only your son," Idrys said, coming in, black-clad as always. "He's down at the Bryalt shrine attempting marry Dame Margolis's granddaughter." There was a clatter and a shout as everyone but Aemaryen and Tristen leapt up from the table.

"I shouldn't hurry," Tristen said, and took another slice of bread.

"Pray, let's not," Cefwyn said. "And find myself a grandfather twice over by noon."

Idrys smirked. He sat down and helped himself to the tea. "Lord Tristen's advice is, as always, sound against all logic."

"Elfwyn's sitting on him," Tristen said, inspecting the jams. "I told you you oughtn't leave them unsupervised."

"My man is outside the shrine," Idrys added. "He has orders to step in if it looks like matters will proceed."

"They won't." Tristen was confident in that, but Cefwyn would not sit, and paced across the room instead. Tristen chose honey instead of jam, and smiled when Aemaryen did the same.

_**\-- Can you not intervene with Father?** Elfwyn asked from the shrine, dipping in and out of the gray space as he struggled with Aewyn. He sounded rather plaintive._

**\-- And who then is to intervene when Aewyn is king?**

The gray light surged with frustration, and Tristen felt he had become Master Emuin, beset with students eager and earnest and clumsy and wanting advice they did not like to hear. But Elfwyn gave up on rescue then and Tristen could feel him talking to his brother. Yelling. Efanor and Ninévrisë sat down again and finished breakfast, and Ninévrisë cleaned the honey off Aemaryen's sticky face, and Efanor took Tristen's hand under the table. Cefwyn only rejoined them when Tristen could say the boys had slunk back to the Guelesfort, both of them unwed.

Cefwyn ceded the battle in the end, grumbling bitterly, and managed to enjoy a few days of Tristen's company before the muttering against Sihhë witchcraft began to edge towards violence in the marketplace and Tristen chose to withdraw from Guelemara.

_It was all for nothing anyway,_ Efanor wrote him later. _Cefwyn took Aewyn along to the negotiations (more, I expect, to rub his nose in the inconvenience he caused than to teach him anything of diplomacy), and the brazen thing all but carried off the Chieftain's niece, after scorning the daughter. So Cefwyn has his treaty and Aewyn has his foreign bride and the northern barons have put forth that this was all a conspiracy masterminded by the south in some bid to undermine their provinces' power -- and incidentally keep their daughters and sisters and nieces off the throne._

And speaking of nieces -- Aemaryen is inconsolable. Did you promise her a ride on Gery?

He had, and felt bad that he had failed to deliver.

It took days to formulate a reply, because he kept writing things he wanted and none of what ought to be. But eventually he won -- or lost -- against himself, and replied that he would be in Modeyneth at the end of planting. It was a risk, but Modeyneth was a less chancy Place for him to stand than Henas'amef. And in the spring he did go to Modeyneth, with Crissand, and before the week was out Ninévrisë's party arrived, on their way to Elwynor for the summer.

And not only Ninévrisë and Aemaryen, but Cefwyn too, and with them, Efanor. Aewyn had been left in charge, and had already turned the court on its ear insisting that his wife and half brother should stay in close counsel.

"I'm for Ilefínian," Cefwyn declared at Earl Drusenan's long table that night. "It weathered two sieges and a spectral dragon, last I was there. I ought to visit my daughter's future kingdom in peacetime."

Tristen heard what Cefwyn didn't say, and that was that he had remembered himself for a Marhanen. The northern barons would not be dictating their king's travel any longer; he would spend the summer with his wife in her kingdom, as she spent the rest of the year with him in his. There would be upset, but the barons had recovered from worse.

Tristen could not resent them, for Efanor was not to go on to Elwynor with Cefwyn's family, but back to Ynefel where he would stay, barring any crisis out of Guelemara, until harvest.

"It pays to have the king on your side," Cefwyn whispered to him before they parted company. "And I think we shall pass through Olmern on our way home, and perhaps Sovrag's son will give us a tour of the river."

Tristen thought he would burst. His lover for a season, and a visit from his dearest friend at the end of it. The old pattern of avoidance broken, Tristen thought the new might be shaped into something more to their liking, and in his head he filled Ynefel's walls with Cefwyn and his family.

****

Efanor had a new horse again, a blue roan with a wicked temper. His name was Cymwys and he was great-great-great nephew to Dysarys, which did nothing to prevent them from hating each other on sight. And because Dys took exception to their visitor Uwen's heavy horse Cass did too and there was very nearly a war in the little stable.

Between he and Efanor and Uwen and Cadun they wrangled Dys and Cass down to pasture, and that left only Gery in a temper, and she only kicked out a slat before settling down.

"I shall confine myself to Petelly, while you're here," Tristen said as they walked back to the keep. Uwen and Cadun stayed to calm Cass; Dys had chosen to view the encounter as won and was strutting up and down the fence in victory.

"That will teach me to choose my mounts for show," Efanor said ruefully. "I have three light horse."

"I'm glad you brought him. He's a fine fellow, even if Dysarys doesn't agree." He _was_ glad; he had far too little of Efanor's daily life and sharing in something as simple as a new horse brought him more joy than he had ever thought possible.

They had a closer look at Cymwys, who was angelic for them now that Dys was gone, and talked about the line Cefwyn had started from Dys and Kanvy's sister until Uwen and Cadun came back. Then there was supper, hot and filling, and a game of dice before the fire, which Tristen only watched because he always won even if he tried not to.

Cook was the victor, and claimed her prize from Uwen, which made Uwen blush and meant Cadun would be sleeping in the loft that night.

Later, Tristen claimed his own prize, captured slowly as Efanor moved on him, in him, all heat and sweat-slick skin. Efanor, after all the years, still clung to him when he came, still wanted to be held after. Tristen obliged, and stroked the damp curls as their heartbeats slowed.

His fingers stilled at Efanor's temple, hair grown coarser. "You have a bit of gray, just here."

"Mmm. Ninévrisë tells me it's dashing, but I find it difficult to believe her when Cefwyn is laughing so."

Tristen obliged him with a smile, but he was occupied in tallying the number of lines which had crept all unnoticed, and he realized Efanor would be forty-eight in the summer. Aewyn's second child would be born at the beginning of winter. Aemaryen would turn fourteen soon, and Ninévrisë had been making inquiries to Crissand regarding his boys; he had plenty to spare and Aemaryen got on with all of them well enough once they had got over her knocking the eldest into the mud. He could not picture her grown with her own children at her skirts. All he could see was the small jam-faced creature mimicking his movements across a far-away breakfast table.

A bright sharp pain started in his chest. His hand spasmed on Efanor's shoulder, and he thought of the ice that awaited him when all he loved passed from the world.

Efanor said nothing, but pressed a kiss to his chest. The candles dimmed on their own, and they slept.

That year Efanor came for a week in spring and two in summer, and then returned in the middle of autumn and he stayed until the holidays. A Wintertide spent in Guelemara, and back to Ynefel again immediately after.

Despite the blowing snow and shrieking winds, winter was warmer that year than any Tristen remembered.

****

It was on a summer day -- and later Tristen would know it for the same day he had come to an exiled prince's court so long ago -- that Tristen spilled tea on one of his books. He'd jerked with the cup in hand, feeling that he was falling.

_Had_ been falling.

He paused in the middle of mopping up the spill, frozen, wide-eyed, heart thundering against the sudden band about his chest. Then he bolted, not knowing where he was running, only that he must run with his body or risk his will taking him to another Place. His feet took him, of habit, to his loft.

On the far side of the division, barred from the pigeons' side by wood and ward, sat Owl, hunched but not asleep, a miserable untidy bundle. For once he was not glaring, and he stepped obediently onto Tristen's raised arm.

"Owl," he whispered. "Oh, Owl, no."

But Owl was a Shadow, and had neither sympathy nor advice, and despite Tristen's wishes to the contrary, four days later a rider arrived from Henas'amef, urgent enough to have braved Marna through the night.

_To our deepest sorrow,_ Crissand had written, and Tristen did not read the rest, threw it into the fire, rejecting it.

He'd known already, felt it the moment the horse shied, and the only thing that had stopped him from bursting through the gray space and into a crowd of Guelenmen was that Cefwyn was already dead. If he went... If he went he would do something incredibly, foolishly dangerous. He sat instead by the hearth where he had first learned the meaning of pain, and let Uwen deal with the other messages that came. Ninévrisë. Aewyn and Elfwyn. Umanon and Idrys and a dozen of the Amefin earls, and unexpectedly Panys and Nelefreissan too.

Sovrag had died some years ago, but his son came sailing up the river as soon as the ice cleared, with Cevulirn, old and frail but still more at ease in the saddle, and Lord Pelumer's grandson, and Crissand rode in from Henas'amef too. While the two younger lords made solemn friends over the Olmern boats, Cevulirn and Crissand sat Tristen down and fed him strong Ivanim drink until his head spun.

Efanor did not come, but sent only a quick impersonal word through Idrys.

When the weather grew pleasant Tristen packed up his small kingdom -- Uwen and Cook and Cadun -- and made the trip across the river to Ilefínian to visit Ninévrisë. Crissand sent along his eldest, Taessen, to stay the summer with Aemaryen and see if they might refrain from throwing mud at each other long enough for the betrothal ink to dry.

"Tristen, dear friend," said Ninévrisë when she came to meet them, and he could not manage a reply, overwhelmed by the _grayness_ that had come over her; to him it had happened between one moment and the next. Gone Cefwyn's dark-haired Elwynim bride, now pale, silver-haired, ashes on her face which, he realized, were only shadowed hollows.

He kissed her wordlessly and felt her life fluttering, fragile as one of his pigeons, under his lips.

They sat in sunny courtyards watching Taessen cajole Aemaryen into both smiles and fits of Marhanen temper, and they sat on boat decks on the Lenúalim watching her push him into the river and then abashedly help fish him out. They went riding, never far, and Tristen remembered the lady who had donned her father's mail and sword and rode more bravely than many others through a wizard's storm. When they spoke, it was no longer of things to come, but of things past.

And when summer began the downhill slide into autumn he said goodbye to her, and thought that he would not see her again. It made him angry. Unexpectedly, terribly. His hands trembled. The gray space flared.

_**\--Men die**, she said to him there, kind and gracious as always, but weary. **We are born expecting it. It's the way of things.**_

But he wanted it not to be, and had to look very hard at Gery's red ears as they rode away to stop himself from _making_ it not.

Cook and Cadun had enjoyed Ilefínian, and talked about all they had seen and done there, but Uwen was quiet all the way back, and even after they had reached the cold stone hall that was home. Tristen left him in silence while the air turned more and more snappish but when Harvesttide came calling he went and sat with Uwen in the yard outside the scullery.

"I'm eighty-six this winter, lad," Uwen said. He was looking at his hands. Still the same capable soldier's hands, tanned and callused. "Ain't right for Cadun, still a youth. He needs other folk. And I..."

Tristen kissed Uwen's cheek. "Only fools want to live forever."

They left before the snows melted, with many tears and admonishments to eat, and to mind he didn't burn down the tower daydreaming. Tristen watched the gate long after it had shut behind them, long after the sun had set and the Shadows ran unrestrained down the walls.

And still Efanor did not come.

****

Spring arrived with a sigh and a very few storms, which cleared at once as though in apology. Between Amefel and Olmern he had found himself well-supplied, if little inclined to use any of the gifts they left for him. Crissand and Sovrag's son had come at Wintertide; Cevulirn had not and before the snow had gone Tristen felt that faint light far to the south flicker and fade out.

Men die, Ninévrisë had said.

He did not.

But he had long ago accepted that he was not as Men were, nor should be, and he let go this one final thing he could not share with them. He spent the days that came in quiet contemplation, watching, as the Lord Warden of Ynefel ought, the horizons of the gray space for threat. He didn't burn down the tower but neither did he much remember to eat.

So he slept and dreamt of Owl soaring over the lands of Men, and on a morning sunny and windy after the previous day's shower, he rose early and dressed, taking care he had no stains or creases. He went down to the yard, the goats gone now, and found the tack as Uwen left it. He choose Petelly, first of his horses, stolen from a then-prince's stables for a foolish ride into haunted Althalen, and the only one who tolerated Cymwys' company. He rode out in good spirits, marveling that Owl had forgone his bed in the loft to escort him.

At the second bridge, the one at the edge of Marna Wood, they waited, Owl perched on Tristen's shoulder, pretending to be tame. The pretense was going badly, as Owl had already bitten his ear twice, and kept knocking him about the head with his wings, perhaps grumpy at being kept awake even though he'd come on his own. Tristen didn't mind. The rain was drying from the leaves as the sun rose higher and the world was as fresh and bright as had been when it was new to him. He breathed, deeply.

Came a jingle, bit rings and armour, and Petelly shivered under him.

Came a flash of red and gold, and Owl swooped away in a swirl of dust and feathers.

A lone horse was coming down the road through Marna Wood, splashing at a smart pace through the puddles, and it didn't pause in startlement to see him there but sped up.

Wordlessly Tristen waited until Efanor drew close, and then turned Petelly towards Ynefel. Efanor's Cymwys fell in beside him, and the two touched noses, whickering.

"I've seen Aewyn onto his throne," Efanor said, looking straight ahead, not blinking, "and I've helped him disabuse his barons of any hope for a biddable Marhanen. Aemaryen will marry Taessen next year and take up governance of Neswy district in her mother's name. Ninévrisë is well as can be. I'll not go again. They can bloody well come to me if they want my counsel."

"Yes, Master Emuin."

"Hush, mooncalf, and kiss me. I've missed you."

Petelly was quite happy to bump shoulders with Cymwys -- at least until he saw a thistle and veered away for it and Tristen almost tumbled out of the saddle, still without his kiss.

"They're tents," Tristen said, trying to recover his dignity, "that the great beasts in Balav carry on their backs. Not houses." _We'll go next year, or perhaps the one after that, and I shan't have to be a fishwife after all,_ he thought, but he must have thought it very loudly for Efanor laughed, a free and joyous sound, and kneed Cymwys to a run towards home.


End file.
